Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

Absolute Knowledge 807 above, it, like all the other moments, has the form of being a particular mode or type of consciousness. It is that part of the embodiment of self-assured spirit which keeps within its essential principle and was called the *' beautiful soul.

That is to say, the " beautiful soul " is its own knowledge of itself in its pure transparent unity — self-consciousness, which knows this pure knowledge of pure inwardness to be spirit, is not merely intuition of the divine, but the self-intuition of God Himself.

Since this notion keeps itself fixedly opposed to its reaHsation, it is the one-sided form which we saw before disappear into thin air, but also take a positive external embodiment and advance further. Through the process of realisation, this self-consciousness bereft of objective content ceases to hold fast by itself, the abstract determinateness of the notion over against its fulfilment is cancelled and done away with.

Its selfconsciousness attains the form of universahty ; and what remains is its true notion, the notion that has attained its reahsation — the notion in its truth, i.e. in unity with its externalisation.

It is knowledge of pure knowledge, not in the sense of an abstract essence such as duty is, but in the sense of an essential being which is this particular knowledge, this individual pure self-consciousness which is at the same time an object ; for the object is the self -existing self. This notion obtained its fulfilment partly from the acts performed by the spirit that is sure of itself, partly from rehgion.

In the latter it obtained the absolute content qua content, or in the form of an ideal presentation or of otherness for consciousness. On the other hand, in the first the form is just the self, for that mode contains the active practical spirit sure of

80S Phenomenology of Mind itself ; the self accomplishes the life of Absolute Spirit. This mode, as we see, is that simple notion, which however gives up its eternal inner Being, takes upon itself objective existence, or acts. The power of diremption or of coming forth out of its inwardness lies in the purity of the notion, for this purity is absolute abstraction or negativity.

In the same way the notion finds its element of reality, or the objective being it contains, in pure knowledge itself ; for this knowledge is simple immediacy, which is being and existence as well as essence, the former negative thought, the latter positive thought. This existence, finally, is just as much that state of reflection into self which comes out of pure existence — both qua existence and qua duty — and this is the state of evil.

This process of " going into self '" constitutes the opposition lying in the notion, and is thus the appearance on the scene of pure knowledge of the essence, a knowledge giving rise to no action and no reahty. But to make its appearance in this opposition is to participate in it ; pure knowledge of essence has inherently relinquished its simpHcity, for it is the diremption or negativity which constitutes the notion.

So far as this process of diremption is the process of becoming self-centred, it is the principle of evil : so far as it is the inherently essential, it is the principle of constant goodness. Now what in the first instance takes place impUcitly and inherently is at once objectively for consciousness, and is duphcated as well — is both for consciousness and is its self-existence or its own proper action.

The same thing that is already inherently estabhshed, thus repeats itself now as knowledge thereof on the part of consciousness and as conscious action. Each finds

Absolute Knowledge 809 the other lay aside the independence of character with which each appears confronting the other. This waiving of independence is the same renunciation of the one-sidedness of the notion as constituted imphcitly the beginning ; but it is now its own act of renunciation, just as the notion renounced is its own notion.

That imphcit nature of the beginning is in truth as much mediated, because it is negativity; it now estabhshes itself as it is in its truth ; and the negative element exists as a determinate quahty which each has for the other, and is inherently and essentially selfcancelHng, self-transcending.

The one of the two parts I of the opposition is the disparity between existence within itself in its individuahty and universahty ; the other, disparity between its abstract universahty and ■the self.

The former lets its self- existence perish, and rehnquishes itself, makes confession ; the latter renounces the rigidity of its abstract universality, and thereby puts away its hfeless self and its inert universahty ; so that the former is completed through the moment of universahty, which is the essence, and the latter through universahty, which is self.

By this process of action spirit has come to hght in the form of pure imiversahty of knowledge, which is self-consciousness as self-consciousness, which is simple unity of knowledge. It is through action that spirit is spirit so as definitely to exist ; it raises its existence into the sphere of thought and hence into absolute opposition, and returns out of it through and within this very opposition.

Thus, then, what was in the case of rehgion objective content, or a way of ideally presenting an other, is here the action proper of the self. The notion is the connecting principle securing that the content is the action